Dowd's skillfully crafted opinion editorial is a devastating message to the U.S. Democratic Party left-wing erroneously so-called "Progressives", who are helping to assure that U.S. President Donald Trump will be re-elected in 2020.

Dowd writes inter alia:

"The progressives’ cry that they don’t care about the political
consequences because they have a higher cause is just a purity racket.

Their
mantra is like that of Ferdinand I, the Holy Roman Emperor: “Fiat
iustitia, et pereat mundus.” “Let justice be done, though the world
perish.”

The rest of us more imperfect beings don’t want the
world to perish. And maybe justice can be done, without losing the White
House, the House, chocolate, high heels, parties and fun." [emphasis added by LawPundit]

and (from an earlier part of that same article):

"Yo, proletariat: If the Democratic Party is going to be against chocolate, high heels, parties and fun, you’ve lost me. And I’ve got some bad news for you about 2020."

As a political centrist not beholden to any political party or any political candidate, we second Dowd's sentiment whole-heartedly.

Donald Trump was elected President because people were (and still are) very tired of left wing extremism and tyrannical political correctness according to one-sided extreme views only.

In the interim, the left political wing has not learned much.
The "silent majority" decides, not you.
America, if anything, is the nation of "the common man", which the left ignores.

"Politics" in our humble opinion cannot be successfully conducted simply as a moral crusade for somebody's pet moral theories, usually honed in the lofty theoretical corridors of common-man-funded institutions of higher learning, and oft advanced by self-proclaimed "better-educated" but in actuality most likely "moral pretenders", who themselves are morally no better than the rest of us, also those of equal (or even better) education. We too are "honed", especially in the art of accomplishing useful things on this 7-billion-plus-inhabitant planet.

Hence, we regard "politics" to be a complex art of skillful opinion blending, a "political science" which reflects the tried-and-true manner of accomplishing useful and necessary things in a world filled with many conflicting opinions.

Which opinion shall prevail?

Not the opinion or moral arrogance of today's left wing. The tyranny of any political wing, also of the left, is "purist" tyranny for the sake of some political "theory", nothing else. We saw what that leads to in National Socialism or Marxist political dogmatism, both of which dogmatically pushed theoretically-based political systems that did not work in practice, to the tragedy of many of the planet's inhabitants.

Some moral purists want to impeach the expedient President because they do not like what he is doing politically (rather than disliking the means per se), rejecting the politics of convenience, and claiming that the U.S. Constitution demands impeachment. Not by our reading ... and our reading also counts.

"Real life" is successfully based on practical problem-solving. You must be able to give and take and "make deals". Otherwise, you won't win elections or solve or alleviate pressing domestic and international problems. People may rankle at "expediency" as a dominating influence, but that is the way things work. Purist morality has little to do with the real world, and often has evil results. America's experiment with Prohibition is one example. It did not work.

In any case, we note as follows that:

We were among the first to predict that Donald Trump would win in 2016, even prior to the primaries, and we can again venture a prediction that Trump will win again in 2020.

Timely for U.S. Independence Day celebration on July 4, the history of the American invention of Xerography and the paradox intellectual property story of Xerox,and "Xeroxing" (copying by machine, photocopying) is nicely told by an article just published by Jessica Silbey at the Smithsonian Magazine online. The first xerographic copy ever made -- on a piece of wax paper -- "[is] today ... displayed in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History".

In an article which, for better understanding, should be read in full by everyone dealing with documents and the the written word in our modern era, Silbey writes [not in the order in which the quotations are quoted here] about "the story of the Xerox machine" as a microcosm of IP issues:

"The story of the Xerox machine is a microcosm of debates surrounding the proper purpose and scope of intellectual property and an object lesson in how irreconcilable dualities inform the everyday practice of intellectual property."[T]he intellectual property that protected the Xerox machine forbids copying and yet the Xerox machine is used to make copies." [emphasis added by LawPundit]"It is ironic that the original copy-machine that could not be copied was built to make copies—copies of texts, photographs, and even instructions for making or using copying machines. And for this reason, although Xerox closely protected its patents from infringement by competitors, the patented technology facilitated infringement of other intellectual property, such as copyrights. It took the 1984 Supreme Court decision Sony Corporation of America v. Universal City Studios ["the Betamax case" on "fair use" -- note and links added here by LawPundit] concerning the legality of the video-cassette recording (VCR) machine to clarify that the makers of the copy-machines such as the Xerox, as well as of other “staple articles of commerce” such as cameras, typewriters, and audio recorders, were not liable for their contribution to copyright infringement stemming from the use of the copy-facilitating invention. [emphasis added by LawPundit]

The following text is not an ad by usbut is appended automatically by the Smithsonian mag website to texts quoted from Smithsonian Magazine online -- as above -- so we have left the links below intact as to the main direct, removing, however, any personal information as to us as the source.

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Responsible for Blog Content: Verantwortlich für den Inhalt:(required by German Law):Andis KaulinsGartenstrasse 1056841 Traben-TrarbachGermanyContact: first and last name dot-separated at gmail dot com

Both volumes have the same cover except for the labels "Volume 1" viz. "Volume 2".The image on the cover was created using public domain space photos of Earth from NASA.

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Both book volumes contain the following basic book description:"Alice Cunningham Fletcher observed in her 1902 publication in the American Anthropologistthat there is ample evidence that some ancient cultures in Native America,e.g. the Pawnee in Nebraska, geographically located their villages according to patterns seen in stars of the heavens.See Alice C. Fletcher, Star Cult Among the Pawnee--A Preliminary Report,American Anthropologist, 4, 730-736, 1902.Ralph N. Buckstaff wrote:"These Indians recognized the constellations as we do, also the important stars,drawing them according to their magnitude.The groups were placed with a great deal of thought and care and show long study. ... They were keen observers....The Pawnee Indians must have had a knowledge of astronomycomparable to that of the early white men."See Ralph N. Buckstaff, Stars and Constellations of a Pawnee Sky Map,American Anthropologist, Vol. 29, Nr. 2, April-June 1927, pp. 279-285, 1927.In our book, we take these observations one level furtherand show that megalithic sites and petroglyphic rock carvingand pictographic rock art in Native America,together with mounds and earthworks, were made to represent territorial geographic landmarksplaced according to the stars of the sky using the ready map of the starry skyin the hermetic tradition, "as above, so below".That mirror image of the heavens on terrestrial land is the "Sky Earth" of Native America,whose "rock stars" are the real stars of the heavens,"immortalized" by rock art petroglyphs, pictographs,cave paintings, earthworks and mounds of various kinds (stone, earth, shells) on our Earth.These landmarks were placed systematicallyin North America, Central America (Meso-America) and South Americaand can to a large degree be reconstructed as the Sky Earth of Native America."